Mr Lillie, Notes on the Larger Getacea. 347 



Notes on the Larger Getacea. By D. G. Lillie, B.A., 

 Hutchinson Research Student of St John's College. (Com- 

 municated by Mr A. E. Shipley.) 



[Read 22 November 1909.] 



The establishment of whaling stations within recent years in 

 three localities off the shores of the British Isles should give a 

 new impetus to the study of Cetology, and stimulate additions to 

 our knowledge of the larger Cetacea before these much-hunted 

 animals become too scarce. 



Hitherto our studies of these enormous creatures have been 

 chiefly derived from isolated specimens stranded from time to 

 time in various localities around the coasts of civilised countries, 

 which coming by chance into the hands of zoologists, often in 

 an advanced state of decay, have enabled them to add a few 

 observations to the large though scattered Cetacean literature. 

 This would indeed seem the only method possible since, during 

 the last three centuries, the whaling industry has been confined 

 to the wildest regions of the earth and carried on under conditions 

 of physical privation which were beyond the endurance of all but 

 a few. 



Since the whaling industry of to-day now supplies fresh 

 material fairly near at hand, and is destined to play a large 

 part in any new work which may be done on the histology and 

 general biology of whales in the near future, it will not be in- 

 appropriate here to briefly trace the history of this industry from 

 early times until its establishment near our shores at the present 

 day, and to give a short account of modern methods of whaling 

 before proceeding to record an observation of more strictly 

 scientific interest, which was made during a preliminary visit 

 to the Irish whaling station in the past summer. 



In very early times whales occasionally became stranded just 

 as they do now, through venturing too near the shore and being 

 left high and dry by the tide. It was, no doubt, soon discovered 

 that the oil of these stranded individuals could be utilised ; but 

 the practice of pursuing and killing large whales, as far as is 

 known, only dates from about the year 875 A.D.j the Basques 

 then hunted Balaena hiscayensis, and from their word " arpoi," 

 which means " to take quickly," we get the word " harpoon." At 

 first the Basques attacked this whale from the shores of the Bay 

 of Biscay ; but they later put out to sea on long voyages as the 

 quarry became scarcer. 



This fishery was practically exhausted by 1607 when Henry 

 Hudson made his first voyage to Greenland and Spitzbergen and 

 discovered the Greenland whale (Balaena mysticetus) in its home 



23—2 



